Has it been a while since you measured your nature quotient? Take this quiz to test your bird knowledge and to reveal your current “NQ” rating.

All of these themes have been written about in The World Outdoors column over the past 12 months. The answers and scoring key are below.

1. What municipality in Southwestern Ontario is known as the Cardinal Capital of Canada?

2. The Huron Fringe Birding Festival is based in what county?

3. What is our most colourful raptor?

4. The “sawbill” is a nickname for what family of birds?

5. What is the collective noun that is used for a flock of owls?

6. Butterflies do not migrate. True or false?

7. How did Rondeau Provincial Park get its name?

8. What is Ontario’s official provincial bird?

9. What milestone did Point Pelee National Park celebrate in 2018?

10. Which of our woodpeckers spends a lot of time feeding on the ground?

11. Does pecking order increase conflict among birds, decrease conflict, or neither?

12. The gray jay was officially renamed in 2018 to what?

13. What is a bioblitz?

14. What do bobolinks, savannah sparrows, upland sandpipers, and dickcissels have in common?

15. Name an example of a brood parasite.

16. Are there more Canadians than mourning doves on the planet?

17. National Geographic, the National Audubon Society, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and BirdLife International together celebrated what special year in 2018?

18. What is a yubbie?

19. What is shade-grown coffee?

20. What does semipalmated mean?

21. Crows and ravens are our only completely black birds. True or false?

22. Entomology is the study of what?

23. What Mexican bird species was seen for the first time in Canada at Rondeau Provincial Park in the late summer and fall?

24. Was the surprising bird found in Goderich last month a ruby-throated hummingbird, a calliope hummingbird or a rufous hummingbird?

25. What is the meaning of an irruptive year?

Answers and scoring key

1. London. 2. Bruce County. 3. American kestrel. 4. Mergansers. 5. A parliament. 6. False. Many butterfly species, including the monarch, migrate. 7. The park was named for Rondeau Bay, which got its name from the French for round water or eau ronde. 8. Common loon. 9. Its centennial. 10. Northern flickers. 11. Pecking order decreases conflict among birds. 12. Canada jay. 13. A bioblitz is a biological survey that records the full biodiversity of a particular location at a particular point in time. 14. These are grassland bird species. 15. Brown-headed cowbirds, yellow-billed cuckoos, and common goldeneyes are examples of birds that lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. 16. No. The world’s population of mourning doves is estimated at 475 million. 17. Year of the Bird. 18. Young urban birder. 19. Shade-grown coffee is grown under a canopy of trees to promote sustainable agricultural and protect natural habitat as opposed to “sun coffee,” which increases production but leads to loss of natural habitats used by neotropical migrants. 20. Partial webbing between a bird’s toes. 21. True. 22. Insects. 23. Great kiskadee. 24. Calliope hummingbird. 25. An irruption is a much higher than expected number of a particular species in a given year.

If you scored 17 or higher, congratulations on having an exceptionally high nature quotient. If you scored nine to 16 points, your NQ is still solid. If you scored up to eight points, I’m guessing that you have fully embraced shinrin-yoku, and that your prize is simply “forest bathing” or being in nature.

Nature notes

Nature London invites people to join in a free New Year’s Day birding hike along the Thames River in Greenway Park. The hike starts at 10:30 on Tuesday, Jan. 1. Visit naturelondon.com for details.

The end of the year is an obvious time to reflect on your bird watching highlights of 2018. Just last week, from my living room I saw a peregrine falcon dive-bombing a snowy owl. That was certainly a highlight. Consider making a nature resolution for 2019. Think about establishing an eBird account or trying shade-grown coffee or learning more about butterflies or visiting a new birding hot spot.

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